David Theo Goldberg, editor

ANAmI4IY OF

M
IN
NE
so
TA

University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis • London
CHAPTER I

Racisnis
Kwame Anthony Appiab

If the people I talk to and the newspapers I read arc representative and reli
able. there i a good deal of racism about. People and policies in the United
States, in Eastern and Western Europe, in Asia and Africa and Latin merica
are regularir described as “racist.” Australia had, until recently, a racist im-’
migration policy: Britain still has one: racism is on the rise in France: many
Israelis support Meir Kahane. an anti—Arab racist; many Arabs, according to
a leading authority, are anti—Semitic racists;’ and the movement to establish
English as the “official language” of the United States is motivated by racism.
Or, at least, so many of the people I talk to and many of the journalists with
the newspapers I read believe.
But visitors from Mars—or from Malawi—unfamiliar with the Western
cnncept of racicm could be excused if they had sona, difficulty in identifying
what exactly racism as. We see it everywhere, but rarely does anyone stop
to say v. hat it is, or to explain what is wrong with it. Our visitors from Mars
would soon grasp that it had become at least conventional in recent years to
express abhorrence for racism. They might even notice that thos most often
accused of it—members of the South African Nationalist party, for
example—may officially abhor it also. But if they sought in the popular me—
dma of our day in newspapers and magazines, on television or radio, in
—

novels or films for an explicit definition of this thing “we” all abhor, they
—

would very likely he disappointed.

Now, of course, this would be true of many of our most familiar concepts.
Siter, chair. tomnare—none of these gets defmed in the course of our daily busi
ness. But the concept of racism is in worse shape than these. For much of
what we say about it is, on the face of it, inconsistent.
It is, for example, held by many to be racist to refuse entry to a unmversitv
to an otherwise qualified “Negro” candidate. hut not to be so to refuse entry
 4 ks un r
:\p t,h
to an eqnalis qualified “Caucasian” one. But “Negro” and ‘Caucasian” are
both }l ucd to be nanies of races, and invidious discrimination on the basis
ut race is uuall’c held to he a paradtgm case of racism. Or. to take another
x niple. it is wid Is believed to be evidence ofan unacceptable racism to cx
ud people ftc iii Iuhs on the basis of race; vet most people, even those ‘a ho
Cli ik (“Jew ish’ as a racial term seem to think that there is nothing wrong
wth I ish lubs, whosc members do not share any particular religious be—
h I cr Atre —American societies, whose members share the juridical harac—
ristic ofAmcrican itizenship and the “racial” characteristic of being black.
I as that these are inconsistencies “Oil the face ofit,” because, for example.
aCtirI1atl\ e actiOn in univcrsits adnussions is Importanti\ different from the
arlier refusal to admit blacks or Jews tot other “Others”, that iris meant, in
part. to correct. Deep enough analysis ma’, reveal it to h quite conSistent
with the ahhorwnee of racism; even a shallow analysis suggests that it is in
tended to be so, Similarly, justifications can be offered for “racial” associa
tions in a plural society that are not available for the racial exciusisism of the
country club But if we take racism seriousl ‘a e ought to be concerned about
the adequacy of these justifications
In this essaS then. I propose to take our ordinary ways of thinking about
race and racism and poInt tip some of their prcsupposinons. And since popu
lar concepts are, of course, usually fairly fuzzily and untheoreticailv con—
ceived, much of what I have to say will seem to be both more theorcticalls
and more precisely committed than the talk of racism and racists in our
newspapers and on television. M claim is that these theoretical claims arc
required to make sensc of racism as the practice of reasoning human beings.
If anyone were to suggest that much, perhaps most, ofwhat goes under the
name “racism” in our v orid cannot be gis en such a rationalized foundation,
I should not disagree’ but t the extent that a practice cannot he rationally
reconstructed it ought. surek, to be given up by reasonable people. The right
tatic ‘a ‘ah racism, if you really ‘a ant to oppose it, is to object to it rationally
in the t’orni in which it stands the best chance of meeting objections. The doc
trines I ‘a ant to discuss can be rationally articulated: and they are ‘a orth ar—
th ulatitig ra tionallv’,n oraer that we can rationally say what we object to in
Racist Propositions
Th re are at least thrcc distinct doctrines that might hc held to express the
theoretical content of what we call “racisni One is the view— which I shall
‘
call iciaifi,n
2 that there ,ire heritable characteristics, possessed by members
—
of our speels, that allow us to divide them into a small set of races, ui such
a ‘a a that ,ill the members ot these races share certain traits and tendencies
It,isnn 5
‘a ith each other that they do not share ‘a ith members of any other race. These
traits and tendencies characteristic of a race constitute, on the racialist view.
a sort of racial essence: and it is part of the content of racialism that the essen
tial heritable characteristics of what the nineteenth century called the “Races
ot Man” account for more than the visible morphological characteristics—
skin color, hair tspe, facial features—on the basis of which we make our in
formal classifications. Racialism is at the heart of nineteenth—century Western
attempts to develop a science of racial difference: hut it appears to have been
believed hs others for example. 1—legel, before then, and many in other parts
—
of the non—estern world since who have had no interest in developing
—
scientific theories.
Racialism is not, in itself, a doctrine that must be dangerous, even if the
racial essence is thought to entail moral and intellectual dispositions.
Provided positive moral qualities are distributed across the races, each can he
respected, can have its “scparate hut equal” place. Unlike most Western—
educated people, I believe and I have argued elsew here
— 3 that racialism is
—
false: but by itself it seems to be a cognitive rather than a moral problem.
The issue is how the world is, not how we would want it to he.
Racialism is, however, a presupposition of other doctrines that have been
called “racism,” and these other doctrines have been, in the last few centuries,
the basis of a great deal of human suffering and the source of a great deal of
moral error.
One such doctrine we mght call “extrinsic racism” extrinsic racists make
moral distinctions between members of different races because they believe
that the racial essence entails certain morally relevant qualities. The basis for
the extrinsic racists’ discrimination between people is their belief that mem
bers of different races differ in respects that warrant the differential treatment,
respects—such as honesty or courage or intelligence—that arc uncontrover—
sially held (at least in most contemporary cultures) to be acceptable as a basis
for treating people diirently. Evidence that there are no such differences in
morally relevant characteristics that Negroes do not necessarily lack in
—
tellectual capacities. thatJews are not especially avaricious— should thus lead
peotile out oftheir racism ifit is purely extrinsic. As we know, such evidence
often fails to change an extrinsic racist’s attitudes substantially. for some of
the extrinsic racist’s best friends have always been jeyvish. But at this
point—if the racist is sincere—what we have is no longer a false doctrine but
a cognitive incapacity, one whose significance I shall discuss later in this
essay.
I say that the sincen’ extrinsic racist may suffer from a cognitive incapacity.
But some who espouse extrinsic racist doctrines are simply insincere intrinsic
racists. For i;irriiisi ,acists, on my definition, are people who differentiate
morally between members of different races because they believe that each
race has a different moral status, quite independent of the moral characteris—
 4 ks un r
:\p t,h
to an eqnalis qualified “Caucasian” one. But “Negro” and ‘Caucasian” are
both }l ucd to be nanies of races, and invidious discrimination on the basis
ut race is uuall’c held to he a paradtgm case of racism. Or. to take another
x niple. it is wid Is believed to be evidence ofan unacceptable racism to cx
ud people ftc iii Iuhs on the basis of race; vet most people, even those ‘a ho
Cli ik (“Jew ish’ as a racial term seem to think that there is nothing wrong
wth I ish lubs, whosc members do not share any particular religious be—
h I cr Atre —American societies, whose members share the juridical harac—
ristic ofAmcrican itizenship and the “racial” characteristic of being black.
I as that these are inconsistencies “Oil the face ofit,” because, for example.
aCtirI1atl\ e actiOn in univcrsits adnussions is Importanti\ different from the
arlier refusal to admit blacks or Jews tot other “Others”, that iris meant, in
part. to correct. Deep enough analysis ma’, reveal it to h quite conSistent
with the ahhorwnee of racism; even a shallow analysis suggests that it is in
tended to be so, Similarly, justifications can be offered for “racial” associa
tions in a plural society that are not available for the racial exciusisism of the
country club But if we take racism seriousl ‘a e ought to be concerned about
the adequacy of these justifications
In this essaS then. I propose to take our ordinary ways of thinking about
race and racism and poInt tip some of their prcsupposinons. And since popu
lar concepts are, of course, usually fairly fuzzily and untheoreticailv con—
ceived, much of what I have to say will seem to be both more theorcticalls
and more precisely committed than the talk of racism and racists in our
newspapers and on television. M claim is that these theoretical claims arc
required to make sensc of racism as the practice of reasoning human beings.
If anyone were to suggest that much, perhaps most, ofwhat goes under the
name “racism” in our v orid cannot be gis en such a rationalized foundation,
I should not disagree’ but t the extent that a practice cannot he rationally
reconstructed it ought. surek, to be given up by reasonable people. The right
tatic ‘a ‘ah racism, if you really ‘a ant to oppose it, is to object to it rationally
in the t’orni in which it stands the best chance of meeting objections. The doc
trines I ‘a ant to discuss can be rationally articulated: and they are ‘a orth ar—
th ulatitig ra tionallv’,n oraer that we can rationally say what we object to in
Racist Propositions
Th re are at least thrcc distinct doctrines that might hc held to express the
theoretical content of what we call “racisni One is the view— which I shall
‘
call iciaifi,n
2 that there ,ire heritable characteristics, possessed by members
—
of our speels, that allow us to divide them into a small set of races, ui such
a ‘a a that ,ill the members ot these races share certain traits and tendencies
It,isnn 5
‘a ith each other that they do not share ‘a ith members of any other race. These
traits and tendencies characteristic of a race constitute, on the racialist view.
a sort of racial essence: and it is part of the content of racialism that the essen
tial heritable characteristics of what the nineteenth century called the “Races
ot Man” account for more than the visible morphological characteristics—
skin color, hair tspe, facial features—on the basis of which we make our in
formal classifications. Racialism is at the heart of nineteenth—century Western
attempts to develop a science of racial difference: hut it appears to have been
believed hs others for example. 1—legel, before then, and many in other parts
—
of the non—estern world since who have had no interest in developing
—
scientific theories.
Racialism is not, in itself, a doctrine that must be dangerous, even if the
racial essence is thought to entail moral and intellectual dispositions.
Provided positive moral qualities are distributed across the races, each can he
respected, can have its “scparate hut equal” place. Unlike most Western—
educated people, I believe and I have argued elsew here
— 3 that racialism is
—
false: but by itself it seems to be a cognitive rather than a moral problem.
The issue is how the world is, not how we would want it to he.
Racialism is, however, a presupposition of other doctrines that have been
called “racism,” and these other doctrines have been, in the last few centuries,
the basis of a great deal of human suffering and the source of a great deal of
moral error.
One such doctrine we mght call “extrinsic racism” extrinsic racists make
moral distinctions between members of different races because they believe
that the racial essence entails certain morally relevant qualities. The basis for
the extrinsic racists’ discrimination between people is their belief that mem
bers of different races differ in respects that warrant the differential treatment,
respects—such as honesty or courage or intelligence—that arc uncontrover—
sially held (at least in most contemporary cultures) to be acceptable as a basis
for treating people diirently. Evidence that there are no such differences in
morally relevant characteristics that Negroes do not necessarily lack in
—
tellectual capacities. thatJews are not especially avaricious— should thus lead
peotile out oftheir racism ifit is purely extrinsic. As we know, such evidence
often fails to change an extrinsic racist’s attitudes substantially. for some of
the extrinsic racist’s best friends have always been jeyvish. But at this
point—if the racist is sincere—what we have is no longer a false doctrine but
a cognitive incapacity, one whose significance I shall discuss later in this
essay.
I say that the sincen’ extrinsic racist may suffer from a cognitive incapacity.
But some who espouse extrinsic racist doctrines are simply insincere intrinsic
racists. For i;irriiisi ,acists, on my definition, are people who differentiate
morally between members of different races because they believe that each
race has a different moral status, quite independent of the moral characteris—
 6 Kss irne \nth r s
tics entail d bs its racIal ssenr e. Just as, for cxample, many people assume
that thr fart that they Ire lii slogical Is related to another person a brother.
—
ao aunt, i c’ — ve thcin a moral interest in that person.
4 so an intrinsic
tit hJJ that th bare fct of being of the same race is a reason for prefer—
on ui mother. I shall return to this parallel later as well.
Fur ar It trinsi r 1st, no amount of evidence that a member ot another
i aabl’ of r at moral, intellectual, or cultural achiescments, or has
stis s th it it rut mbers of one’s own race, is ould make them admi—
oi arrr.n tii. cF’r aiiv ground fur treatIng that person as he or she
ws uld treat snuilaris endowed members of his or her own race. Just so. sonic
sts JrC “mtrnic sexists.” holding that the hare Get that someone is a
5 cllilan or nutu is a reason for treating her or him) in certain is ays.
I herr are interesting possibilities for complicating these distinctions:
se mc racists, for example, claim, as the Mormons once did, that they dis—
riminate hens ecu people because the believe that God requires them to do
so Is this an extrinsic racism. predicated on the combination of God’s being
an intrinsic racist and the belief that it is right to do what God wills? Or is
t intrinsic raei’m because it is based on the belief that God requires these dis—
cri’ninations because they are right? Is an act pious because the gods iove it.
e r do they love it because it is pious?) Nevertheless, the distinctions betis een
racialism and racism and h tween two potentially overlapping kinds of rac
ism pros ide us with the skek ton of an anatoms of the propositional contents
of racial attitudes.
Racist Dispositions
Most people will ant to object already that this discussion of the proposi
tional ontent ofru ist moral and fictual helieG misses something absolutely
crucial to the character ofthe psychological and sociological reality ofracism,
something I touched on si hen 1 mentioned that extrinsic racist utterances are
otten made by eOpiL who suflr from ii hat I called a “cognitive incapacity.”
Part of the standard force of accusations of racism is that their objects arc in
nie ss as luau
5 nal The objection to Professor Shockley s claims about the
intelligence of blacks is not just that they are false, it is rather that Professor
Shockles seems, like to my people vs e call “racist.” to be unahle to see that
the evidence does not support his factual claims and that the onnection he—
txs ecu his factual claims and hs policy prescriptions involves
a series of lion
seq hit urs
What makes these cognitive incapacities especially troubling—something
ye should respond to with more than a recommendation that the individual,
Professor Shockley, be offrred psychotherapy —is that they conform to a
certain pattern, namely, that it s especially where beliefs and policies that are’
Racisins 7
•o the disadvantage of nonwhite people that he shows the sorts of disturbing
fulure that have made his views both notorious and notoriously unrealiable.
lndeed, Professor Shockley’s reasoning works extremely well in some other
areas’ that he is a Nobel Laureate in physics is part ofvs hat makes huim so in—
tCrcsting an example.
Thic cognitive incapacity is not, of course, a rare one. Many of us are un
able to give up beliefs that play a part in justifying the special advantages s.e
gain (or hope to gain) from our positions in the social order—in particular,
beliefs about the positive characters of the class of people who share that p0—
ition. Many people who express extrinsic racist beliefs— many vs hite South
Africans. for example are beneficiaries of social orders that deliver ads an—
—
tages to them by virtue of their “race.” so that their disinclination to accept
es idence that vs ould depris e them of a justification for those ads aritages is
‘ust an instance of this general phenomenon.
So too, evidence that access to higher education is as largely determined
hs the quality of our earlier educations as b our own innate talents, does not.
OIi the whole. undermine the confidence of college entrants from private
schools in England or the 1..’nited States or Ghana. Many of them continue
to believe in the face of this evidence that their acceptance at “good” universi
ties shows them to be intellectually better endowed (and not just better pre
pared) than those vs’ho are re)ec ted. It is facts such as these that give sense to
the notion of false consciousness, the idea that an ideology can prevent us
from acknowledging facts that vs ould threaten our position.
The most interesting eases of this sort ofideologi. al resistance to the truth
are not, perhaps, the ones I have just mentioned. On the vs hole, it is less sur
prising, once we accept the admittedly problematic notion of self—deception.
that people ssho think that certain attitudes or beliefs ads antage them or
those they rare about should be able, as we say. to “persuade” themsclves to
ignore evidence that undermines those beliefs or attitudes. What is more in
teresting is the existence of people who resist the truth ofa proposition while
thinking that its wider acceptance would in no way disadvantage them or
those individuals about vs horn they c.mre this nught be thought to describe
—
Professor Shockley; or who resist the truth when they recognize that its ac
ceptance would actually advantage them— this might b the case vs ith some
black people who have internalized negative racist stereot pes: or vs ho fail,
by virtue of their ideological attachments, to recognize what is in their own
best interests at all.
lvIv business here is not with the psychological or social processes by
sshich these forms of ideological resistance operate, but it is important, I
think, to see the refusal on the part ofsome extrinsic racists to accept cx idence
against the beliefs. is an instance of a widespread phenomenon in human
affairs. It is a plain fact, to svhirh theories of ideology must address them
selves. that our species s prone both morally arid intellectually to such dis—
 K’’ s.u ‘\nthon’s Appish Racisms 9

tortions of judrnent, in particular to distortions ofiudgrnent that reflect par— trouble. But it is important to remember that propositional racists in a racist
tialitv. kn inability to change your mind in the fate of appropriates evidence ulture have false moral beliefs but may not suffer from racial prejudice.
is i cognitis incapacity: but it is one that all of us surely suffer from in some Once we show them how society has enforced extrinsic racist stereotvpes
areas of belief: especially in areas where our ow n interests or self—images once we ask them whether they really believe that race iii itself, indepen—
are
cot seem to bej at stake.
i ntly of those extrinsic racist beliefs, justifies differential treatment, many
It is not, however, as some have held, a tendency that we are powerless
to vs ill come to give up racist propositions, although we must remember how
resist. No one, no doubt, can be impartial about everything—e powerful a eight of authority our arguments have to overcome Reasonable
ven about
cverything to which the notion of partiality applies: hut there
is no subject people may insist on substantial evidence if they are to give up beliefs that
matter about which most sane people cannot, in the end, he persuaded
to avoid are central to their cultures.
partiality in judgment And it mas help to shake the convictions
of those Still, in the end, many will resist such reasoning: and to the extent that
v huse incapacir derives from this sort ofideological defense ifw
e show them their prejudices are really not subject to any kind of rational control, vs e may
how their reaction fits into this general pattern. It is, indeed, becaus
e it gener onder whether it is right to treat such people as morally responsible for the
ally dr fit this pattern that e call such views “racism” the suffix
—
“—ism” in acts their racial prejudice motivates, or morally reprehensible for holding the
dicating that what we have in mind is not simply a theory but an
ideology. icy s to which their prejudice leads them. It is a bad thing that such people
It would be odd to call someone brought up in a remote corner
of the world exist; they arc, in a certain sensc, bad people. But it is not clear to me that
is ith false and demeaning views about white people a “racist
” if th,it person thes’ are responsible for the fact that they are bad. Racial prqudiee. like preju
gave up these helief quite easily in the face of appropriate eviden
ce, dice generally, may threaten an agent’s autonomy, making it appropriate to
Real lii e racists, then, cxhihit a w stematically distorted rationa
lity, the treat or train rather than to reason with them.
kind ofsvstematicallv distorted rationality that we are likeh to
call “ideolog But once someone has been offered evidence both (1) that their reasoning
ical.” And it is a distortion that is especially striking in the cognitive
domain: in a certain domain is distorted by prejudice, and (2) that the distortions con
extrinsic racists, as I said earlier, how ever intelligent or otherw
ise well iii— form to a pattern that suggests a lack of impartiality, they ought to take spe
formed, often fail to treat evidence against the theoretical propos
itions ofex— cial care in articulating views and proposing policies in that domain. They
trinsic racism lispasionately Like exninsic radsin,
intrinsic racism can also ought to do so because, as I have already said, the phenomenon of partiality
often he set n as ideological; hut since scientific evidence is not
going to settle in judgment is well attested in human affairs. Even ifyou are not immediately
the issue. a failure to see that it is wrong represents a cognit
ive incapacity persuaded that you are yourself a victim of such a distorted rationality in a
only on controversially realist views about morality. What
makes intrinsic certain domain. you should keep in mind alw ays that this is the usual position
racism similarly ideological is not so much the failure of inductive
or deduc of those who stiffer from such prejudices. To the extent that this line of
tive rationality that is so striking in someone like Professor
Shocklev but thought is not one that itself falls vs ithm the domain in question, one can be
rather the connection that it, like extrinsic racism, has with the
interests—real held responsible for not subjecting judgments that aie within that domain to
or pcrccis ed of the dominant group.
—
6 Shockley’s racism is in a certain sense
directed ayaimot nonwhite people: many believe that his views an especially extended scrutiny: and this is a fortiori true if the policies one
vs ould, if ac is recommending are plainly of enormous consequence.
cepted, operate against their objective interests, and he certain
ly presents the Ifit is clear that racial prejudice is regrettable. it is also clear in the nature
black “race’ n a 1 ess than flattering light
I propose to use the old—fashioned term “racial preiud of the case that providing even a superabundance of reasons and evidence
ice” in the rest ot this
essay to refer to the deformation ofrationalit iii judgm will often not he a successful way of removing it. Nevertheless, the racist’s
ent that characterizes
those is how rat ism is more than a theoretical attachment prejudice will he articulated through the sorts of theoretical propoSitions 1
to certain proposi—
tions about race. dubbed extrinsic and intrinsic racism. And w should certainly he able to s.iy
something reasonable about wh these theoretical propositions should be re—
cc ted.
Racial Prejudice Part of the reason that this is worth doing is precisely the fact that many
of those who assent to the propositional content of racism do not suffer from
It is hardls neeessar\ to raise objections to what 1 ani racial prejudice. In a country like the United States, where racist propositions
calling “racial preju
dice’: someone ‘a ho exhibits 5 tih deformations of rationality is plainly in were once part of the national ideology, there will be many who assent to
 kaosns 11
11) Kwame Anthony Appiah

racist propositions simply because they were raised to do so. Rational objec prrssiOn and hatred have appealed to ext;iuslc racist ideas. This point is im—
tion to racist propositions has a fair chance of changing such people’s beliefs. rtant for understanding the character of contemporary racial attitudes.
fhe two major uses of race as a basis for moral solidarity that are most
arniliar in the West are varieties ofPan—Africanisrn and Zionism, In each case
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Racism :t is presupposed that a “people.” Negroes or Jews, has the basis
for shared
,ilitical life in the fact of being of the same race. There are varieties of each
It is not always clear whether someone’s theoretical racism is intrinsic or ex farm of “nationalism ” that make the basis lie in shared traditions: hut how —

trinsic, and there is certainly no reason why we should expect to be able to vcr plausible this may he in the case of Zionism, w hih has in Judaism. the
settle the question. Since the issue probably never occurs to most people in ligion, a realistic candidatc for a common and nonracial focus for national—
these terms, we cannot suppose that they must have an answer. In fact, given the peoples of Africa has e a good deal less in common culturally than
the definition of the terms I offered. there is nothing barring someone from Is usually assumed. I discuss this issue at length in In Xfy
Iaathefa house: Ifasays
being both an intrinsic and an extrinsic racist, holding both that the bare fact ii tile Philooph
’ or
1 an Culture. hth let me say here that I believe the central
of race provides a basis for treating members of his or her own race differ— fact is this: what blacks in the West. like secularized Jew 5. have mostl in

ends from others and that there are morally relevant characteristics that are common is that they are perceived — both by themselves and by others as
—

differentially distributed among the races, Indeed, for reasons I shall discuss belonging to the same race, and that this common race is used by others as
in a moment, most intrinsic racists are likely to express extrinsic racist beliefs, .he basis for discriminatin g against them, “If you ever forget you’re a Jew,
so that we should not be surprised that many people seem, in fact, to be corn a goy will remind you.” ‘The Black Nationalists, like some Zionists,
mitted to both forms of racism. responded to their experience of racial discrimination h accepting the racial—
The Holocaust made unreservedly clear the threat that racism poses to hu urn it presupposed.
man decency. But it also blurred our thinking because in focusing our atten Although race is indeed at the heart of Black Nationalism, how ever, it
tion on the racist character of the Nazi atrocities, it obscured their character seems that it is the fact ofa shared race, not the fact of a shared racial charac
as atrocities. What is appalling about Nazi racism is not just that it presup ter. that provides the basis for solidarity. Where racism is implicated in the
poses, as all racism does, false (racialist) beliefs—not simply that it involves asis for national solidarity, it is intrinsic, not (or not only) extrinsic It is this
a moral incapacity (the inability to extend our moral sentiments to all our fel that makes the idea of fraternity one that is naturally applied in nationalist
low creatures) and a moral failing (the making of moral distinctions without discourse. For, as I have already observed, the moral status of dose family
moral differences)—but that it leads, first, to oppression and then to mass members is not normally thought ofin most cultures as depending on quali
slaughter. In recent years. South African racism has had a similar distorting ties of character: we are supposed to love our brothers and sisters in spite of
effect. For although South African racism has not led to killings on the scale their faults and not because of their virtues. Alexander Crummell, one of the
of the Holocaust even if it has both left South Africa judicially executing
—
founding fathers of Black Nationalism, literalizes th metaphor of family in
more (mostly black) people per head of population than most other countries these startling words:
and led to massive differences between the life chances ofwhite and nonwhite
South Africans it has led to the systematic oppression and economic exploi Racs. likr families, are the organismc and ordinances of Cccl: and race feel
ing, like family feclinc. is of divine origin. The extinction of race feelmng is
—

tation of people who are not classified as “white.” and to the infliction of
just as possible as the extinction of faniii\ fLeling. Indeed. araLei’a
suffering on citizens of all racial classifications, not least by the police state
family .

that is required to maintain that exploitation and oppression,

Part of our resistance, therefore, to calling the racial ideas of those, such
as the Black Nationalists of the 1960s, who advocate racial solidarity, by the
same term that we use to describe the attitudes of Nazis or of members of
the South African Nationalist party, surely resides in the fact that they largely
did not contemplate using race as a basis for inflicting harm. Indeed, it seems
to me that there is a significant pattern in the modern rhethoric of race, such
that the discourse of racial solidarity is usually expressed through the lan
guage of mt omit racism, while those who have used race as the basis for op—
It is the assimilation of ‘race feeling” to family fcehng’ that makes intrin
sic racism seem so much less objectionable than extrinsic racism. For this
metaphorical identification reflects the fact that, in the modern world (unlike
the nineteenth century). intrinsic racism is acknowledged almost exclusively
as the basis of feelings of community. We can surely, then, share a sense of
what Crummell’s friend and co—worker Edward Blvden called “the poetry
of politics,” that is, “the feeling of race,” the feeling of ‘people with whom
9 The racism here is the basis of acts of supererogation.
we arc conncctcd.”
 kaosns 11
11) Kwame Anthony Appiah

racist propositions simply because they were raised to do so. Rational objec prrssiOn and hatred have appealed to ext;iuslc racist ideas. This point is im—
tion to racist propositions has a fair chance of changing such people’s beliefs. rtant for understanding the character of contemporary racial attitudes.
fhe two major uses of race as a basis for moral solidarity that are most
arniliar in the West are varieties ofPan—Africanisrn and Zionism, In each case
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Racism :t is presupposed that a “people.” Negroes or Jews, has the basis
for shared
,ilitical life in the fact of being of the same race. There are varieties of each
It is not always clear whether someone’s theoretical racism is intrinsic or ex farm of “nationalism ” that make the basis lie in shared traditions: hut how —

trinsic, and there is certainly no reason why we should expect to be able to vcr plausible this may he in the case of Zionism, w hih has in Judaism. the
settle the question. Since the issue probably never occurs to most people in ligion, a realistic candidatc for a common and nonracial focus for national—
these terms, we cannot suppose that they must have an answer. In fact, given the peoples of Africa has e a good deal less in common culturally than
the definition of the terms I offered. there is nothing barring someone from Is usually assumed. I discuss this issue at length in In Xfy
Iaathefa house: Ifasays
being both an intrinsic and an extrinsic racist, holding both that the bare fact ii tile Philooph
’ or
1 an Culture. hth let me say here that I believe the central
of race provides a basis for treating members of his or her own race differ— fact is this: what blacks in the West. like secularized Jew 5. have mostl in

ends from others and that there are morally relevant characteristics that are common is that they are perceived — both by themselves and by others as
—

differentially distributed among the races, Indeed, for reasons I shall discuss belonging to the same race, and that this common race is used by others as
in a moment, most intrinsic racists are likely to express extrinsic racist beliefs, .he basis for discriminatin g against them, “If you ever forget you’re a Jew,
so that we should not be surprised that many people seem, in fact, to be corn a goy will remind you.” ‘The Black Nationalists, like some Zionists,
mitted to both forms of racism. responded to their experience of racial discrimination h accepting the racial—
The Holocaust made unreservedly clear the threat that racism poses to hu urn it presupposed.
man decency. But it also blurred our thinking because in focusing our atten Although race is indeed at the heart of Black Nationalism, how ever, it
tion on the racist character of the Nazi atrocities, it obscured their character seems that it is the fact ofa shared race, not the fact of a shared racial charac
as atrocities. What is appalling about Nazi racism is not just that it presup ter. that provides the basis for solidarity. Where racism is implicated in the
poses, as all racism does, false (racialist) beliefs—not simply that it involves asis for national solidarity, it is intrinsic, not (or not only) extrinsic It is this
a moral incapacity (the inability to extend our moral sentiments to all our fel that makes the idea of fraternity one that is naturally applied in nationalist
low creatures) and a moral failing (the making of moral distinctions without discourse. For, as I have already observed, the moral status of dose family
moral differences)—but that it leads, first, to oppression and then to mass members is not normally thought ofin most cultures as depending on quali
slaughter. In recent years. South African racism has had a similar distorting ties of character: we are supposed to love our brothers and sisters in spite of
effect. For although South African racism has not led to killings on the scale their faults and not because of their virtues. Alexander Crummell, one of the
of the Holocaust even if it has both left South Africa judicially executing
—
founding fathers of Black Nationalism, literalizes th metaphor of family in
more (mostly black) people per head of population than most other countries these startling words:
and led to massive differences between the life chances ofwhite and nonwhite
South Africans it has led to the systematic oppression and economic exploi Racs. likr families, are the organismc and ordinances of Cccl: and race feel
ing, like family feclinc. is of divine origin. The extinction of race feelmng is
—

tation of people who are not classified as “white.” and to the infliction of
just as possible as the extinction of faniii\ fLeling. Indeed. araLei’a
suffering on citizens of all racial classifications, not least by the police state
family .

that is required to maintain that exploitation and oppression,

Part of our resistance, therefore, to calling the racial ideas of those, such
as the Black Nationalists of the 1960s, who advocate racial solidarity, by the
same term that we use to describe the attitudes of Nazis or of members of
the South African Nationalist party, surely resides in the fact that they largely
did not contemplate using race as a basis for inflicting harm. Indeed, it seems
to me that there is a significant pattern in the modern rhethoric of race, such
that the discourse of racial solidarity is usually expressed through the lan
guage of mt omit racism, while those who have used race as the basis for op—
It is the assimilation of ‘race feeling” to family fcehng’ that makes intrin
sic racism seem so much less objectionable than extrinsic racism. For this
metaphorical identification reflects the fact that, in the modern world (unlike
the nineteenth century). intrinsic racism is acknowledged almost exclusively
as the basis of feelings of community. We can surely, then, share a sense of
what Crummell’s friend and co—worker Edward Blvden called “the poetry
of politics,” that is, “the feeling of race,” the feeling of ‘people with whom
9 The racism here is the basis of acts of supererogation.
we arc conncctcd.”
 12 Kss mc A thon A ppi ih
. Rdosflis
the treatment of others better than we otherwise might, better than moral
duty demands of us.
This is a contingent fact. There is no logical impossibility in the idea of
racialists whose moral beliefs lead them to feelings of hatred for other races
while leaving no room for love of members of their own. Nevertheless most
racial hatred is in fact expressed through extrinsic racism: most people ho
hase used race as th basis for causing harm to others have felt the need to
see the others as independently morall flaw ed. It is one thing to espouse
fraternity withoUt claiming that your brothers and sisters have any special
qualities that deserve a cognition. and another to espouse hatred of others
who have done nothing to deserve it.’°
Many Afrikaners like many in the American South until recently have —
a long list of extrinsic racist answers to the question why blacks should not
hase full civil rights. Fxtrinsic racism has usually been the basis for treating
people worse than we otherwise might for giving them 1 es than their hu—
mania entitles them to, I3ut this too is a contingent fact, Indeed, Crummell’s
guarded respect for white people derived from a belief in the superior moral
qualities of the Anglo—Saxon race.
Intrinsic racism is, in mv view, a moral error. Even if racialism were cor
rect. the bare fact that someone was of another race would he no reason to
treat them w orse or better than someone of my race. ln our public lives,
people are owed treatment independently of their biological characters: if
they are to be differemitl treated there must be some morally relevant differ
em e between them. In our pris ate lives, we are morally free to have aesthetic
preferences between people. but once our treatment of people raises moral
issues, we may not make arbitrary distinctions. Using race in itself as a
morall relevant distinction strikes most of us as obviously arbitrary. With
out associated moral characteristics, why should race provide a better basis
than hair color or height or timbre of voice? And if two people share all the
properties norallx relevant to some action we ought to do, it will be an
err r a failure tc apply the Kantian injunction to unisersalize our moral
judgments— to use the bare facts of race as the basis for treating them differ
ently. No one should deny that a common ancestry might, in partkular cases,
account for similarities in moral character. l3ut then it would be the moral
similarities that justified the different treatment.
It is presumably because most people—outside the South African Nation
alist party and the Ku Klux Klan— share the sense that intrinsic racism re
quires arbitrary distinctions that they are largely unwilling to express it in
situations that invite moral criticism But I do not know how I would argue
with someone who was w tiling to announce an intrinsic racism as a basic
moral idea; the best one can do, perhaps, is to provide objections to possible
lines of defense of t.
13
De Gustibus
it might he thought that intrinsic racism should be regarded not so much as
n adherence to a (moral) proposition as the expression of a taste, analogous.
y. to the food prejudice that makes most English people unwilling to cat
rse meat, and most Westerners unwilling to eat the insect grubs that the
Kung people find so appetizing. The analogy does at least this much for us.
amclv, to provide a model of the w av that extrinsic racist propositions can
be a reflection of an underlying preieidiee. For, of course, in most cultures
thud prejudices are rationalized: we say insects are unhvgienic and cats taste
horrible, Yet a cooked insect is no more health—threatening than a cooked
carrot, and the unpleasant taste of cat meat, far from justifying our prqudice
gainst it, probably derives from that prejudice.
But there the usefulness of the analogy ends. For intrinsic racism, as I have
defined it, is not simply a taste for the company of one’s “own kind,” but a
oral doctrine, one that is supposed to underlie differences in the treatment
f people in contexts where moral evaluation is appropriate. And for moral
distinctions we cannot accept that “de gustibus non est disputandum” We do
not need the full apparatus of Kantian ethics to require that public morality
he constrained by reason.
A proper inalogv would be with someone who thought that We could
continue to kill cattle for beef even if cattle exercised all the complex cultural
skills of human beings I think it is obvious that creatures that shared our ca
pacity for understanding as well as our capacity for pain should not be treated
the way we actuall\ treat cattle that “intrinsic speciesism” would be as
—
wrong as racism. And the fact thar most people think it is worse to be cruel
to chnnpanzces than to frogs suggests that they ma agree with me. The dis
tinction in attitudes sure lv reflects a belief in the greater richness ofthe mental
life of chimps. Still, I do not know how I ould arc,uc against someone who
could not see this, someone who continued to act on the ‘ontrars belief
might in the end, simply have to be locked up
The family Model
I have suggested that intrinsic racism is, at least conmettmes. a metaphorical
extension of the moral priority of one’s faniilv: it might. therefore, he sug
gested that a defense of intrinsic racism could proceed along the same lmes
as a defense of the family as a center of moral interest. I he possibility of a
defense of family relations as moraill relevant —or, more precisely, of the
claim that one may be morally entitled (or even obliged) to make distinctions
between two otherwisc morally indistinguishable people because one is
related to one and not to the other is theoretically important for the
—
 14 K\s a’ne Anthnv Appish
prospects of a philosophical defense of intrinsic racism. This is because such
a defense of the family ins olves like intrinsic racism a denial of the basic
— —
claim, expressed so clearly by Kant, that from the perspective of morality.
it is as rational agents szniplicitr that ss c are to assess and be assessed. For any
one who tollows Kant in this, what matters, as we might say, is not who you
arc but hoss you try to live. Intrinsic racism denies this fundamental claim
also. And. in co doing, as I have argued elsesvhere. it runs against the main
stream of the history of Western moral theory .
The importncc of drawing attention to the similarities between the de
fense of the famils and the defense of the race, then, is nor merely that the
metaphor of family is often invoked by racism; iris that each of them offers
the same general challenge to the Kantian stream of our moral thought. And
the paraikl with the defense of the family should be especially appealing to
an intrinsic racist, since many of us who have little time for racism would
hope that the tanuls is suceptihle to sonic such defense.
The problem in generalizing the defense of the family, however, is that
such defenses srandardl\ begin at a point that makes the argument for intrin
sIc racism immediately implausible: namely, with the family as the unit
through which we live what is most intimate, as the center of private life. If
we distinguish with Bernard Williams, between ethical thought, which
takes seriously “the demands, needs, claims, desires, and generally, the lives
of other people, and morality, which focuses more narrowly on obliga
tion, t may well be that private life matters to us precisely h,,ause it is al
together unsuited to the universalizing tendencies of morality.
The functzoning family unit has contracted substantially with industriali
zation. the disappearance of the faniih as the unit of production. and the in
creasing mobility of labor but there remains that irreducible minimum: the
parent or parents with tke child or children. In this ‘nuclear” family, there
is, of courw, a substantial bod of shared experience, shared attitudes, shared
knowledge and beliefs, and the mutual psychological investment that exists
within this group is, for most of us. one of the things that gives meaning to
our lives. It is a natural enough confusion—which we find again and again
in discussions of adoption in the popular media—that identifie” the relevant
group with th, biological unit of ,cenifer, nietrix. and /fsprius rather than
with the social unit of those who share a common domestic life.
The relations of parents and their biological children are of moral impor
tance, of course in part because children are standardly the product of be—
has ior voluntarily undertaken by their biological parents. But the moral rela
tions between biological siblings and half—siblings cannot, as I have already
pointed out, be accounted tbr in such terms. A rational defense of the family
ought to appeal to the causal responsibility of the biological parent and the
common life of the domestic unit, and not to the brute fact ofbiological relat
edness, even ifthe former pair of considerations defines groups that are often
Rasms 15
-oextensive svith the groups generated by the latter. For brute biological
relatedness bears no necessary connection to the sorts of human purposes
that seem likely to be relevant at the most basic level of ethical thought.
An argument that such a central group is bound to be crucially important
in the lives of most human beings in societies like ours is not, of course, an
argument for any specific mode of organization of the “family”: feminism
and the gay liberation movement have offered candidate groups that could
and sometimes do) occupy the same sort of role in the lives of those whose
sexualities or whose dispositions othersvise make the nuclear family uncon
genial; and these candidates have been offered specifically in the course of
defenses of a move toward societies that are agreeably beyond patriarchy and
homophobia. The central thought of these feminist and gay critiques of the
nuclear family is that we cannot continue to view any one organization of
private life as “natural,” once we have seen even the broadest outlines of the
archaeology of the farmlv concept.
If that is right, then the argument for the faimly must be an argument for
mode oforganization oflife and feeling that subserves certain positive func
tions; and however the details of such an argument would proceed it is highly
unlikely that the same functions could be served by groups on the scale of
races, simply because, as I say, the family is attractive in part exactly for rea
sons of its personal scale.
I need hardly say that rational defenses of intrinsic racism along the lines
1 have been considering are not easily found. In the ,ibsence of detailed
defenses to consider. I can only offer these general reasons for doubting that
the’ can succeed: the generally Kantian tenor of much of our moral thought
threatens the project from the start: and the essentially umntimate nature of
relations within “races” suggests that there is little prospect that the defense
of the family —which seems an attractive and plausible project that extends
ethical life beyond the narrow range of a universalizing moralits —can be ap
plied to a defense of races.
Conclusions
I have suggested that what ss e call “racism” involves both propositions and
dispositions.
The propositions were, first, that there are races (this was racialism) and,
second, that these races are morally significant either (a) because they are con—
tingentlv correlated with morally relevant properties (this was extrinsic racism)
or (b) because they are intrinsically morally significant (this was miii immsic
m-acisni).
The disposition was a tendency to assent to false propositions. both moral
and theoretical, about races—propositions that support policies or beliefs
 16 Ku anie ‘\iithons Appiah Racisins 17

that arc to thc disadvantagc otsome race (or races) as opposed to others, and beliefs :s tint I ndcpende itt of
a (The it cii lv se hat c’s dense should apput’pu arc/i- e hangs v our
to do so even in the face ofevidencc and argument that should appropriately -cc o
5 cmal or historical situ it ion. In inuel—ninete e’nth—ecntu r’. 5 Ame’r
a ,i in N ci England s]iaite
lead to giving those propositions up. Fhis disposition I called “racial as in the Ii art of I) xie thc pets asic e ness of the institutional support for the pies ,uiling
,l rieist belief’— the hi t that it cc is re mt/in cd he re liguon
and state, and defended hs
preiudice c ant horns lie ant that
i’hc’iniv ersi t 55 it,d e Olle Ce s. ii ho had the greatest cognutis
I suggested that intrinsic racism had tended in our o n time to be the nat to insist on a substantial body of evidence and argument before
ci 13 has ci- en appropriate
ural expression of teelings of community, and this is. of course, one of the p a p se ni :.t ra ist pre’po cm tiemums In Gait fotma n the
I 08h, of on rse. u iartcr stand ra thc’r
reasons s by we are not inclined to call it racist. For, to the extent that a theo ntIs To ,t,:knt cc ledge tll is is not id mit tel .i ogniti s e tel ins cmi. rather. it is to hold
p
that belts f is cc ide Ii l
5
h d and espe’ciallc b 3 people in
retical position is not associated with irrationailt held b hefs that tend to the i least in 0 it i k manic, tt fact i —

tt’ eogntnv. eitlioritc mmii be a pooch prima tdeic re asoti for belies mm mm.
Jaads antagc ofsome group, it fails to display the ditectedn
1 is of the distortions outlive the period
F I ele etietti iCs. as I Cost the struts e’t ide ‘loge ha vs admitted. st,uidarelic
of rationalitm characteristic of racial prejudice. Intrinsic racism may be as irra— to tie obsetive s
5
incerts of the lominant group ui a society; so even
o ‘h thec t nform
tionajl held as any other s iess, but it does not hai’e to he directed aa1,Ilt ‘pane hits tli:mmke that the eioitunant gretup iti our societs no longer needs rae ism to buttress

am, one. tIme h

5
m oltgc of an earlier phase of sot etc 1 sac “ereseip
C’ stits!I .tn see raeiril as t’ersistulg

C p th cia m appropriatels general: it se n te

5 nme a substaninal Cmtther e laini that the elomni—
So far as thcor is concerned I believe racialism to be false: since theoretical
‘it arteip ci hose ‘nierests an idc itiogs’ sers s’s us alss
as sad lass- I has e argued. hocc ever, in “The
racism of both kinds presupposes racialism, I could not logicails support rac of the ruling lasses iii the
( spe ri at or. a: ‘Ra e’” that r .teisTli 5 Otlttniies to serve the interests
ism of either s aricty, But even if racialism crc true, both forms oftheorcti_ - in Bi, k 4m tn.’ r I irtnatitci F rum, 23 (Spring 191(9
, pp. 3” 60.
[he
cal racism ix ould be incorrect. Extrinsic racism is false because the genes that At I trans 3 in ‘The I.’neoitiplc ted Argument. t)u Bins and the llhusiotm cf Ra
“

this mess e explains cvhc Sartre calls its manifestatii,t ts in

iccount for the gross morphological differences that underlie our standard or dma/c ‘tme.tl ilaras ter of
.ini/tel’ gut’ dc/a netS
racial categories arc not linked to those genes that determine, to ixhatcver de ‘iCr teide in “antitacist racism”; see “Orphe-e Noir,” his preface to Senghor’s
pitt cOt tr na/ag lit dt (angst a
5 ot’
frati (Paris: J>UE. I 941(3. S,mrtre believed, of c outse’, that
‘i
gree such niatters arc determined genetically, our moral and intellectual c-i

or racism and his 5 ieci oi it

Fe s tirh as it this dmaleetie ci oemld be the transcendence
ft is as

characters, Intrinsic racism is mistaken because it breaches the Kantian im— a stage the antithsa s itm that pros ess tfuat alloss ed him to see it as a positive ads anee etc er
of antirae ist racism
peratvc to make moral distinctions only on morally relesant grounds— he original ‘thesis’ of Luropcan racism. I seispee t that the reactive e haracter
es: bet t this tesler nice s
granted that there is no reason to believe that race, in at’. is morally relevant, e tumits for the ti is rane c that is re-gulanlc extended to it in lube ral cite
or it as a stage in a pro—
and also no reason to suppose that races are like famnihes in providing a sphere irelv hard tcmjcmstufc unless one shares Santre’s emptilnmstie interpretation
all taeisms (And unless your s icc’, of this dialectic is dete rmnunistuc,
ess that 1 ads tel ths end of
of ethical life that legitimately escapes the demands of a universalizing in sht told in an S ‘‘act is mt to plac an argu me’ntat i se rile’ iii nt esvuig to di
s us xt stage.
morality, I—or a ‘nmmlar Zietii t n’’spomse ‘see Horaem’ K slleks “The Ethics ofZiunisnt
“ Ua i/oman, Au—
iist 19(/6
l’ls’isgli: Ne ,c York:
“1 ime Ra e’ Problem it’ Anienic a.” in Broucs .“s’t’fut ‘set Cl aunt [nil’ i
NoTES Basic Bociks I m t
1 p 11(4
Ldunborpi Uni ‘ersmty
9 C/’ iariannC, Ic/am ,nu/ i/c \mgu m Rae (1880 rep umtcd Edinhi rgh
• B rn ird I ccvi s ,S ‘nro and 4 iiri-.Se net’ N cci York Nort 1)86
. , Pos’s l°tr,, p icr
I shah h acm p the is ‘rds “racism’ and ‘ra 5 ialisni” ci it h th meanings I sttpulate in sonic - I his is mu p.irt u re (let tietit t iii trump cmrtant asv minis tr loarhmn a dtk’ te’v, mc eels
dialects f F.i glob 1 is cc undesir
. ate ss no on s. and in most dialects their definition is lcss than prec iv. jeietifving; and this I would argue. is because loathing usualli I ads to act hat at
or div ussiom of re ent biological evidence see \1 Nci and are largely mit desirable— mndeed. stipere t ocatoruls so
. K. Rose lioudhurv, “Genetic able, ci hcreas lets e leads ttt acts that tt’

Relationship and Evolution if Human Raei tsr—Spring I 050 5”

Eictlunstamy Bit/at’
,.“ 3 ol 14 York Plenum 11. See up’ “P acis in and Si oral I”sllutie,ti P/i (/ sip/mm 0 F ci it,., 1 8 ‘Wiui
,“

I pp. a, for ucefui haeggroun i cc also M. Nci and A K. Roiehoudheirc

‘Gene Differ= i-p 185 2u2
‘—

.
1053:
cnecs hetci len Caueasi in. Negro, and japatit se P pulanons.” ,S,it nec. I
(August 1 92. pp 12 1. tmiit’ m’r,/ ni’ Li’ti,r’,t ‘‘pJi C .tmi,bride, El-icc. Hare Sri F 5 em sitS Prese.
434 33 “
I dct nt ,t is i .hs i’ is sh.i re SE lhiartms’’s sk. pti is iii mb ott mior.ulirc
p i
3 Sec n “The Un omplet d Argument Du Bois and the Illusion of
Race Critica/ Injuny,
12 Autumn I 983/ ret rinte d in Hetits Locus GateS (eds.., ‘Ri ” II nutg, aid Difi/ un
1 Chi—
ago. Ums ersit oft hieago Prc ss, I 9 i-u 21. 3.

4 This fact sliocs ug n 1st ohs ie ucl n th assumption ihat idoprcd

children tnt Iligibls
maPi ci aims igal nst their n anita 1 siblings: nat ur,il pa rents are
f on rse, can salle respemnsih It for
th ir hild s existence an I tl’at could b the hot ofmoral claims. ci tthout
ans Sense di it biologi
cal relatedness entailed rights or respor sibilities Bu no such basis exists for an
interest in natural
ihuin tn5 sisters are not i a us a liv respons his for as existence See Th F a mu v Model.”
.

later
it t/-u v
 16 Ku anie ‘\iithons Appiah Racisins 17

that arc to thc disadvantagc otsome race (or races) as opposed to others, and beliefs :s tint I ndcpende itt of
a (The it cii lv se hat c’s dense should apput’pu arc/i- e hangs v our
to do so even in the face ofevidencc and argument that should appropriately -cc o
5 cmal or historical situ it ion. In inuel—ninete e’nth—ecntu r’. 5 Ame’r
a ,i in N ci England s]iaite
lead to giving those propositions up. Fhis disposition I called “racial as in the Ii art of I) xie thc pets asic e ness of the institutional support for the pies ,uiling
,l rieist belief’— the hi t that it cc is re mt/in cd he re liguon
and state, and defended hs
preiudice c ant horns lie ant that
i’hc’iniv ersi t 55 it,d e Olle Ce s. ii ho had the greatest cognutis
I suggested that intrinsic racism had tended in our o n time to be the nat to insist on a substantial body of evidence and argument before
ci 13 has ci- en appropriate
ural expression of teelings of community, and this is. of course, one of the p a p se ni :.t ra ist pre’po cm tiemums In Gait fotma n the
I 08h, of on rse. u iartcr stand ra thc’r
reasons s by we are not inclined to call it racist. For, to the extent that a theo ntIs To ,t,:knt cc ledge tll is is not id mit tel .i ogniti s e tel ins cmi. rather. it is to hold
p
that belts f is cc ide Ii l
5
h d and espe’ciallc b 3 people in
retical position is not associated with irrationailt held b hefs that tend to the i least in 0 it i k manic, tt fact i —

tt’ eogntnv. eitlioritc mmii be a pooch prima tdeic re asoti for belies mm mm.
Jaads antagc ofsome group, it fails to display the ditectedn
1 is of the distortions outlive the period
F I ele etietti iCs. as I Cost the struts e’t ide ‘loge ha vs admitted. st,uidarelic
of rationalitm characteristic of racial prejudice. Intrinsic racism may be as irra— to tie obsetive s
5
incerts of the lominant group ui a society; so even
o ‘h thec t nform
tionajl held as any other s iess, but it does not hai’e to he directed aa1,Ilt ‘pane hits tli:mmke that the eioitunant gretup iti our societs no longer needs rae ism to buttress

am, one. tIme h

5
m oltgc of an earlier phase of sot etc 1 sac “ereseip
C’ stits!I .tn see raeiril as t’ersistulg

C p th cia m appropriatels general: it se n te

5 nme a substaninal Cmtther e laini that the elomni—
So far as thcor is concerned I believe racialism to be false: since theoretical
‘it arteip ci hose ‘nierests an idc itiogs’ sers s’s us alss
as sad lass- I has e argued. hocc ever, in “The
racism of both kinds presupposes racialism, I could not logicails support rac of the ruling lasses iii the
( spe ri at or. a: ‘Ra e’” that r .teisTli 5 Otlttniies to serve the interests
ism of either s aricty, But even if racialism crc true, both forms oftheorcti_ - in Bi, k 4m tn.’ r I irtnatitci F rum, 23 (Spring 191(9
, pp. 3” 60.
[he
cal racism ix ould be incorrect. Extrinsic racism is false because the genes that At I trans 3 in ‘The I.’neoitiplc ted Argument. t)u Bins and the llhusiotm cf Ra
“

this mess e explains cvhc Sartre calls its manifestatii,t ts in

iccount for the gross morphological differences that underlie our standard or dma/c ‘tme.tl ilaras ter of
.ini/tel’ gut’ dc/a netS
racial categories arc not linked to those genes that determine, to ixhatcver de ‘iCr teide in “antitacist racism”; see “Orphe-e Noir,” his preface to Senghor’s
pitt cOt tr na/ag lit dt (angst a
5 ot’
frati (Paris: J>UE. I 941(3. S,mrtre believed, of c outse’, that
‘i
gree such niatters arc determined genetically, our moral and intellectual c-i

or racism and his 5 ieci oi it

Fe s tirh as it this dmaleetie ci oemld be the transcendence
ft is as

characters, Intrinsic racism is mistaken because it breaches the Kantian im— a stage the antithsa s itm that pros ess tfuat alloss ed him to see it as a positive ads anee etc er
of antirae ist racism
peratvc to make moral distinctions only on morally relesant grounds— he original ‘thesis’ of Luropcan racism. I seispee t that the reactive e haracter
es: bet t this tesler nice s
granted that there is no reason to believe that race, in at’. is morally relevant, e tumits for the ti is rane c that is re-gulanlc extended to it in lube ral cite
or it as a stage in a pro—
and also no reason to suppose that races are like famnihes in providing a sphere irelv hard tcmjcmstufc unless one shares Santre’s emptilnmstie interpretation
all taeisms (And unless your s icc’, of this dialectic is dete rmnunistuc,
ess that 1 ads tel ths end of
of ethical life that legitimately escapes the demands of a universalizing in sht told in an S ‘‘act is mt to plac an argu me’ntat i se rile’ iii nt esvuig to di
s us xt stage.
morality, I—or a ‘nmmlar Zietii t n’’spomse ‘see Horaem’ K slleks “The Ethics ofZiunisnt
“ Ua i/oman, Au—
iist 19(/6
l’ls’isgli: Ne ,c York:
“1 ime Ra e’ Problem it’ Anienic a.” in Broucs .“s’t’fut ‘set Cl aunt [nil’ i
NoTES Basic Bociks I m t
1 p 11(4
Ldunborpi Uni ‘ersmty
9 C/’ iariannC, Ic/am ,nu/ i/c \mgu m Rae (1880 rep umtcd Edinhi rgh
• B rn ird I ccvi s ,S ‘nro and 4 iiri-.Se net’ N cci York Nort 1)86
. , Pos’s l°tr,, p icr
I shah h acm p the is ‘rds “racism’ and ‘ra 5 ialisni” ci it h th meanings I sttpulate in sonic - I his is mu p.irt u re (let tietit t iii trump cmrtant asv minis tr loarhmn a dtk’ te’v, mc eels
dialects f F.i glob 1 is cc undesir
. ate ss no on s. and in most dialects their definition is lcss than prec iv. jeietifving; and this I would argue. is because loathing usualli I ads to act hat at
or div ussiom of re ent biological evidence see \1 Nci and are largely mit desirable— mndeed. stipere t ocatoruls so
. K. Rose lioudhurv, “Genetic able, ci hcreas lets e leads ttt acts that tt’

Relationship and Evolution if Human Raei tsr—Spring I 050 5”

Eictlunstamy Bit/at’
,.“ 3 ol 14 York Plenum 11. See up’ “P acis in and Si oral I”sllutie,ti P/i (/ sip/mm 0 F ci it,., 1 8 ‘Wiui
,“

I pp. a, for ucefui haeggroun i cc also M. Nci and A K. Roiehoudheirc

‘Gene Differ= i-p 185 2u2
‘—

.
1053:
cnecs hetci len Caueasi in. Negro, and japatit se P pulanons.” ,S,it nec. I
(August 1 92. pp 12 1. tmiit’ m’r,/ ni’ Li’ti,r’,t ‘‘pJi C .tmi,bride, El-icc. Hare Sri F 5 em sitS Prese.
434 33 “
I dct nt ,t is i .hs i’ is sh.i re SE lhiartms’’s sk. pti is iii mb ott mior.ulirc
p i
3 Sec n “The Un omplet d Argument Du Bois and the Illusion of
Race Critica/ Injuny,
12 Autumn I 983/ ret rinte d in Hetits Locus GateS (eds.., ‘Ri ” II nutg, aid Difi/ un
1 Chi—
ago. Ums ersit oft hieago Prc ss, I 9 i-u 21. 3.

4 This fact sliocs ug n 1st ohs ie ucl n th assumption ihat idoprcd

children tnt Iligibls
maPi ci aims igal nst their n anita 1 siblings: nat ur,il pa rents are
f on rse, can salle respemnsih It for
th ir hild s existence an I tl’at could b the hot ofmoral claims. ci tthout
ans Sense di it biologi
cal relatedness entailed rights or respor sibilities Bu no such basis exists for an
interest in natural
ihuin tn5 sisters are not i a us a liv respons his for as existence See Th F a mu v Model.”
.

later
it t/-u v